As the world rapidly urbanizes, its cities sink themselves into the ground in sprawling tendons of tunnels - conduits for transport, utility, communication, shelter and storage. The excavation of these spaces, at ever-increasing depths and speed, has changed our lives in ways that we tend to take for granted. For the first time, this book charts the global reach of urban underground spaces, bringing together a collection of 80 stories of subterranean sites around the world. The book draws out the extraordinary range of meanings suggested by urban underground spaces, whether their power as places of hope, fear, memory, labour and resistance, or their capacity to evoke both long histories and futures in the making. Illustrated with often breathtaking photographs, Global Undergrounds creates a new sense of the richness and global diversity of urban underground spaces. Its breadth and depth will appeal to all those who are engaged with these spaces: from urban planners, geographers, architects and engineers to urban explorers, photographers and anyone who encounters underground spaces in their cities.Indeed we inhabit a world where the material stuff beneath our feet is constantly in flux, where layer upon layer of things, people and substances circulate, dream and dwell.

About the Author
Paul Dobraszczyk is a writer and researcher based in Manchester. He is the author of Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain (2014) and Into the Belly of the Beast: Exploring London's Victorian Sewers (2009). Carlos Lopez Galviz is a lecturer and research fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is the co-editor of Going Underground: New Perspectives (2013). Bradley L. Garrett is a social geographer at the University of Southampton. His books include Explore Everything: Place-hacking the City (2013) and Subterranean London: Cracking the Capital (2014).


Book Information
ISBN 9781780235769
Author Paul Dobraczyk
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Reaktion Books
Publisher Reaktion Books